Apparently my coverage of Graham Robb’s book is one of the least popular things I’ve ever written, if page views are a reliable judge of interest. I will accordingly try to read the rest of the book this week and post a final summary post of the whole thing rather than drag it out any more. In the meantime, since we are talking about Celtic people, it seems like a good time to revisit a claim David Childress made in Ancient Aliens on Friday that I did not have time to research for my review. He described the Tuatha De Danann, a fictional invading people in Irish myth, as arriving in Ireland in dark clouds and blocking the sun for three days. He says these clouds were alien spaceships, and the on-screen graphics depict them as flying saucers. And… he’s almost right!

The story is told originally in the Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of Invasions), compiled in the eleventh century in Middle Irish from a set of loosely related poems and histories, and currently extant in a number of divergent manuscripts usually categorized as the First Redaction, Second Redaction, Third Redaction, and two other less important ones of different names. The book was heavily influenced by Classical and Christian sources and is not an unambiguous source for Irish myth, especially since, like Snorri’s Eddas, it has been heavily euhemerized to make the gods into humans connected to the Greco-Roman past. The Tuatha de Danaan were among these victims. The two manuscripts preserving the First Redaction in its entire, called the Book of Leinster (L) (c. 1150) and the Book of Fermoy (F) (1373), differ in wording and material, with F providing additional, probably interpolated, details. Here is how they present the story of the “UFO” invasion, in the translation of R. A. Stewart Macalister:

306 (L). So that they were the Tuatha de Danann who came to Ireland. 306 (F). Thereafter the Tuatha de Danann came into Ireland.

Here F adds a note:

Their origin is uncertain, whether they were of demons or of men; but it is said they were of the progeny of Beothach s[on of] Iarbonel the Giant (sic).

The two sources then pick up the story, which I will follow mostly in L, as it is the version that is closest to the “ancient alien” idea, and is older:

306 (L). In this wise they came, in dark clouds. They landed on the mountains of Conmaicne Rein in Connachta and they brought a darkness over the sun for three days and three nights. 306 (F). In this wise they came, without vessels or barks, in dark clouds over the air, by the might of druidry, and they landed on a mountain of Conmaicne Rein in Connachta: Thereafter the Tuatha De Danann brought a darkness over the sun, for three days and three nights. 307. They demanded battle or kingship of the Fir Bolg. A battle was fought between them, to wit the first battle of Mag Tuired, (L) in which a hundred thousand of the Fir Bolg fell. Thereafter they (the Tuatha De Danann) took the kingship of Ireland. Those are the Tuath Dea — gods were their men of arts, non-gods their husbandmen. They knew the incantations of druids, and charioteers, and trappers, and cupbearers.

To this F adds a note derived from a different manuscript tradition, obviously euhemerized from the older myth:

Another company says that the Tuatha De Danann came in a sea-expedition, and that they burnt their ships thereafter. It was owing to the fog of smoke that rose from them as they were burning that others have said that they came in a fog of smoke. Not so, however: for these are the two reasons why they burnt their ships: that the Fomoraig should not find them, to rob them of them; and that they themselves should have no way of escape from Ireland, even though they should suffer rout before the Fir Bolg.

This material is repeated across the manuscripts in section 322, emphasizing the burned-boat version. This is all suggestive, but how do we know that they weren’t ancient aliens? If you expect to take the text literally, it becomes very easy. A few lines earlier, in 304 (L & F) and 305 (F), the poem states that the Tuatha De Danann learned science and magic from the Druids and scholars of four (human) cities! Also, their leader in section 310 and thereafter is Nuada, the king that Ancient Aliens told us only weeks ago was a human the aliens gave a bionic arm. Actually, though, they probably did originate as gods in mythology, before rationalization, since Nuada is undoubtedly Nodens, the great god. As for the darkness, it isn’t the result of great ships as Childress implies; instead, it is a smoke screen, just like the one Athena uses to cloak Odysseus in the Odyssey and the one that hides Jason’s approach to Colchis in the Argonautica. Divine, yes; alien, not according to the text. And at any rate, a cloud is not a ship or a spacecraft. To make it so, you have to allow for symbolism, which negates the idea of taking the description literally. Naturally, ancient astronaut theorists have made this into a Sitchin-inspired racist nightmare. According to online ancient astronaut claims like this one posted less than two weeks ago, the Tuatha De Danann were the Anunnaki from some Sitchinite fantasy, and they first settled in Ireland in search of (of course) gold. There, these writers claim, the Tuatha De Danann founded the homeland of the Aryan race, making Ireland both the font of human civilization and the home of the purest white people in the world.

That website you link to is pretty funny. The Irish civilization is older than Sumeria? Just stated as a fact, no explanation.

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charlie

7/28/2014 03:43:21 pm

anyone who's researched high civilization in ireland knows that Newgrange was built in 3200 bce, a time when sumerians were just getting started, sumeria like egypt didn't create anything significant until around 2500 bce, they were also aryan(r1a1a-m420) as well, at least the high castes were see Nofret and rahotep and the standard of Ur.

I much prefer the theory that they were Danaans from Greece, who were, in turn, Israelites from the tribe of Dan, and are therefore part of the "lost ten tribes of Israel." But, of course, that theory has nothing to do with space aliens. It does go to show you the wide range of explanations that become available in the face of the unknown, and how, in the absence of evidence we don't always have to resort to ancient aliens as the answer (as some apparently do).

"There, these writers claim, the Tuatha De Danann founded the homeland of the Aryan race, making Ireland both the font of human civilization and the home of the purest white people in the world."

That's a pretty cool trick, considering that, according to myth, the Milesians (ancestors of the modern Irish) drove the Tuatha de Danann from power. If the Indo-Europeans ("Aryans") originated in Ireland, then why are the Milesians (presumably Indo-Europeans themselves) always described as a foreign population?

Incidentally, what kind of technologically advanced super-aliens get their asses kicked by a bunch of Celts with spears? Where were their mountain-shattering kinetic weapons, and their atomic arrows? I mean, I know the Irish have a reputation for being tough in a fight, but you're going to need more than war chariots to overcome smart missiles and alien power-armor.

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The Other J.

11/18/2013 09:41:37 am

"then why are the Milesians (presumably Indo-Europeans themselves) always described as a foreign population?"

Ireland's always been a land of immigrants. It was the last land in Europe to be settled (there's no evidence of any human settlement until well after the last ice age), and they're all foreigners unto themselves. In the early modern period, the connection with Spain was strong enough that Irish people could move to Spain and basically enjoy Spanish citizenship. It's only recently that a kind of homogenized Irishness has emerged, and that's not even all that settled. Good old 19th century Romanticism and nationalism is to blame for that, and it tended to wear on the irish Gaelic-speaking people's nerves, since most of that political energy came from non-Irish Gaelic-speaking people who were trying to claim the island in the name of some misty Gaelic past.

So you get things like the Proclamation of the Irish Republic that was presented and read during the 1916 uprising at the General Post Office -- they wrote it in English and transliterated it into Irish, but no one knew Irish well enough to make it make sense to native Irish Gaelic speakers, who ended up just sort of scoffing at the whole thing. And that led to someone like writer Flann O'Brien, a native Irish speaker, who would write columns sometimes in English, sometimes in Irish, sometimes in Irish that didn't make sense until you read it out loud and aurally recognize it was English, and vice-versa. That cultural division still persists today in some ways; Dublin is in Leinster, and that region is seen as overly-compromised by the English -- Dublin was an English outpost for centuries, and was initially built by the Vikings. Since it's the center of the publishing, academic and political power, it tends to determine what the public face of Irishness becomes, which can really grate on people from the west (where the Tuatha De Danann landed) and the south (where the Milesians landed), and the north is just a whole 'nother story all together. Ulster is its own province, has its own cultural history, but not all of Ulster is Northern Ireland -- part of it is still in the Republic... sheesh. Fortunately now, more of these gripes are worked out on GAA, rugby and soccer pitches, instead of with pipe bombs.

When I lived in over there, the tourist board was airing a commercial where they showed all these different invasions landing on a beach, and the narration went something like "First it was the Celts, then it was the Vikings, then the Normans, then the English. Next it could be you, and you'd be the first ones we've invited."

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Shane Sullivan

11/18/2013 04:01:16 pm

"Ireland's always been a land of immigrants."

Well of course it has, J; it was settled by aliens!

charlie craig

7/28/2014 03:54:28 pm

land of immigrants? you disgust me, a land that has been conquered over and over and occupied is not a land of immigrants it's a land that's been conquered and subjected to genocide. The blood of the natives still flows in us, Island gene flow=static, see the Chedar man and his descendant who lives 2 miles from his grave.

Charlie Craig

7/28/2014 03:52:40 pm

Aryans all carry R1a1a-m420, not all whites are aryan, the celts(r1b1b) have a common mother language to aryans but are a different ethnic group. The aryan empire lasted from 3200 bce-2200 bce. Aryan is not a misnomer either, it means princely or noble which is what all aryans called themselves everywhere they went. They application of the term Aryan to all whites is not accurate but aryans are undeniably the source of the rise of civilization in 3200 bce globally. Milesians came from Iberia in 2200 bce, they drove many of the aryans out of the british isles and displaced them over time. The aryans however do not come from Ireland and they invaded the people of the leather bag who lived there before, aryans come from south eastern europe, the area around the DANUbe river. in Romania, Ukraine/russia and old Thrace. Up until the ottoman invasion those areas were still very aryan. The second aryan invasion was less impressive but more well documented, see the Kurgan hypothesis, spread of chariot + mythological archetypes(i.e. thunder gods with blunt weapons who fight snakes and dragons)

technical competence in flight alone isn't enough. and look at the comparative primitives with flintlocks who were kicking our asses and Russians in Afghanistan. The more complicated higher tech people are actually more vulnerable.

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The Other J.

11/18/2013 09:08:26 am

There's also the problem that the Book of Invasions says the Tuatha De Danann were descended from Nemed, who supposedly came from Scythia, was the third invasion of the island, and lost the island to the Fir Bolg. So are the Scythians also aliens, or are the Tuatha De Danann supposed to be hybrids? And if so, what's that make the Fir Bolg, since they took the island from Nemed in the first place?

As for making Ireland Aryan, that sounds like a Michael Tsarion fever dream, where he turns "Éireann" into "Aryan." Except Éireann is the genitive case of Éire, the Gaelic name for Ireland (or you could go with the dative Éirinn) -- which comes from a goddess's name, Ériu (one of the Tuatha De Danann), which comes from the Proto-Goidelic Īweriū (which means 'good land' or 'full land'), which also gave rise to the word Hibernia. It's perfectly clear. Sort of. But only if you ignore the other names for the island -- Banba, Fótla (along with Ériu, all daughters of Ernmas of the Tuatha De Danann), Elg, Fál, and Inis Fáil.

The reason Éire became the main name probably has more to do with poets and nationalists using the Hiberno-English word Erin because of its poetic utility, and because giving the island a female persona derived from Ériu (goddess of abundance or plenty) was a nice counter-point to John Bull. If they'd gone with Banba instead of Éire, I wonder if people would still try to connect the Irish with Aryans, or if they'd be Barbarians, or from Bhutan, or Barbados.

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Thane

11/18/2013 12:27:22 pm

Frankly, I'm disappointed that there is no mention of Balor One-Eye nor a claim that his gaze was really an Alien Death Ray.

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Dave Lewis

11/18/2013 03:06:41 pm

The theme of 3 days and 3 nights of darkness is common in Judeo-Christian apocalyptic literature. Could the Book of Invasions borrowed that from Judeo-Christian apocalyptic literature?

Dave Lewis

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Varika

11/18/2013 03:46:28 pm

It's possible, but my opinion is that it's more likely something of a Jungian archetypal thing in both cases; "blotting out the sun" is a pretty universal image/fear, probably due to the fact that humans can't see real well in the dark.

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BP

11/19/2013 01:36:31 am

Face it Jason, folks like aliens and other such garbage more than advanced Celtic civilization stuff. Maybe if Robb had mentioned Celtic spaceships. I, for one, have been enjoying your review of Robb's book.

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Ronan Coghlan

11/23/2013 02:11:20 am

The Tuatha De Danaan were in fact the gods of the ancient Celts. They had counterparts in Britain, called the Children of Don. When both countries became Christianised, they were changed into a race of especial humans to accord with Christian doctrine.

Even if they arrived by air, that doesn't prove anything alien about them. Some few earth made flying craft may have existed, see my book A POSSIBLE HISTORY OF LIFE ON MARS by Christine Erikson on amazon.com, where I argue that aliens originated on earth, and the aliens we see now are just chickens coming home to roost so to speak. Still bad news.

But the burned boats story makes more sense. I vaguely recall some other situation where the way out was eliminated to make sure the troops didn't run.

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Heidi

11/24/2013 07:36:16 am

To be honest, I think the prevalence of modern Celtic paganism would welcome the idea of ancient aliens as a source for legends of the Tuatha De Danann rather than have pseudo scholars equate the legends of The Shining Ones with British Israelites. I have spent some time in the pagan community and am familiar with some fring Christian beliefs, and to be blunt, the essentialism that runs thru both group narratives is pretty strong and ought not to be conflated with one another. Oil and Water if Balkanization is the warning and the lesson to be learned from a mishmash of origin theories.

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Jerome Garvin, Jr.

12/26/2013 05:48:03 pm

This article is farce. Read the Book of Invasions for yourself to come to your own conclusions about how everything connects, as the Milesians and Tuatha de Dannan were both Scythians. I'm Southern Ui Neill, genealogy is the key to all of our troubles.

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charlie craig

7/28/2014 03:40:54 pm

Scythian=Aryan(defined by R1a1a-m420 and culture/linguistics) DO you know what you find in high concentrations in meaglithic ireland(meath)? R1a1a-m420? do you what you find in the areas where they were said to have been exiled(western scotland)? r1a1a-m420. aryans conquered the world in 3200 bce and their global empire lasted until 2200 bce, from old kingdom egypt, sumeria, indus valley to minoan crete. all a 1000 year reign that all ended globally at the same time.